Tiny House Blog

Most of you have been following the development of the Sonoma Shanty plans, workshop and kit. Stephen Marshall of the Little House on the Trailer has taken the Sonoma Shanty one more step and added wheels and a little more space.

The Sonoma Shanty on wheels, is a completed shell on wheels that is designed for the do-it-yourselfer to furnish and complete. Stephen has attempted to make this the most affordable base unit on wheels.

At $9,000 you get an eight foot by twenty foot home with 160 square feet, it is a nice size area to develop as a home.

Easily design a bathroom and shower in the rear, with a kitchen galley on one side and storage on the other. The main living area would be in the front of the shanty. A loft could be put above the bathroom and kitchen area for additional storage or sleeping.

By using Sing Panels (SIPs) this home is already insulated and ready to complete. All you need to do is add wiring and plumbing and do the finish work and add the appliance and fixtures you want.

You as the designer could complete the interior to your own taste and design as you get an open canvas to work with. A basic home at a very affordable price, one more option for a tiny house.

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I am very lucky to be living in Northern California where there is a lot of tiny house activities going on. Besides, Jay with Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, Bill with Tortoise Shell Homes and Stephen with Little House on the Trailer, I am just 45 minutes from Hopland and the flagship Real Goods Store and Educational Center.

A few weeks ago I was on my way to see my folks in Ukiah and pick up Max our dog and decided to take some time to stop by Real Goods and photograph their tiny houses that they have scattered around their property.

I have stopped in at different times as they were constructing the homes, but never had my camera with me. This time I went prepared with the idea to share with the Tiny House Blog readers what Real Goods has to offer for examples of tiny homes.

I have attached a lot of pictures to this post and have put brief descriptions under the photos. So take your time and enjoy. If your ever in the area, reserve time to visit Real Goods, you won’t be disappointed.

Here is what Real Goods has to say about themselves:

We’ve been busy getting stocked up for the holiday season and fine-tuning displays to make them educational and exciting — emphasizing product groupings like “Relocalization and Peak Oil,” “Biofuels and Alternative Transportation,” and “Green Building.” We’re also revamping our Renewable Energy Department, where we’ve seen sales numbers double annually in response to worldwide global warming concerns. Our sustainable living library contains more than 2,000 titles on subjects including organic and biodynamic gardening, cooking, natural and green building, renewable energy, intentional community, permaculture, politics, alternative fuels, electric vehicles, sustainable outdoor projects and much more. You’ll also find new men’s and women’s organic clothing (from basic to hip) as well as healthy body care products. And for the little ones on your list, we carry dozens of educational and solar toys. More than half the store’s products cannot be found in this catalog, so we invite you to stop by, browse and experience the future, while you check out the wonders of the Solar Living Center. The Hopland Real Goods store is open every day (except Christmas Day) from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Go and visit the Real Goods Website and if you are in the area be sure and stop by and check everything out yourself.

Straw Bale Welcome Building

Inside of Strawbale Welcome Building

Colorado Yurt Company Dwelling

Straw Bale and Stick Built Garden Shed

Straw Bale Residence

SIP Building Example

YurtBoy Yurt

Straw Bale Bathroom would make a cool tiny house

Windmill and Giant Solar Panels

Cob Well House

Tepee Residence

Straw Bale and Stick Built Tiny House

Back of Straw Bale and Stick Built Residence

Painted Storage Container

Solar Option for a Tiny House

Portable Solar on a Trailer

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Shed-Boy Demonstration Building

Shed-Boy a company located in Port Townsend, WA, build small buildings for which can be used for almost any function you can imagine. Shed-Boy’s focus is as an efficiency dwelling unit, fully self-contained, so they can function as..

•  Accessory Dwelling Unit (mother-in-law suite)
• cottage or cabin
• guest house
•  art studio
• rental

Each plan series comes in lengths from 16’ to 28’ and are 14’ deep. Shed-Boy also has the Outlaw model, a 10 x12 unit which gives you a 120 s.f. unit with a full kitchen, bath and laundry, and enough room for a fold-away bed!

Sustainability is deeper than “green” products and finishes. Shed-Boy wants to go beyond LEED platinum. Shed-Boy’s goal is to provide quality buildings that utilize resources to strengthen our communities. Zero-impact is no longer enough- we need to have a positive impact
with what is available now!

• Designed to be modular, panelized, or constructed on-site with optimum efficiency.
• In our base model, finishes are minimal creating the lowest cost product with the highest utility.
• Small spaces are efficient to heat, and light. Less surface area, fewer corners, and building envelope penetrations result in tighter more efficient buildings.

Check out the Shed-Boy site to learn more.

Update: This is a 12 x 16,- it is the Jake floor plan- this one is constructed with SIPs and was completed in about 7.5 hours. – more photo’s are available under the slides button at at the bottom of our web page www.shed-boy.com

Photo Credit: Shed-Boy

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Form & Forest Flat Pack Cabins

If you have ever dreamed of getting away to a contemporary piece of design your moment has arrived. Form & Forest have worked hard to bring stunning design together with prefab manufacturing techniques that allow you to build a cabin and enjoy it sooner.

Form & Forest offers a range of cabins that have been designed for how you live at the cabin, both inside and out. Generous indoor and outdoor living spaces group the eating, entertaining and relaxing together while offering seclusion for sleeping and quiet reading.

The generous decks and large windows are designed into the plans with the full expectation that you will be building your cabin in a pretty fantastic landscape. A Landscape whose vistas, trees and rocks should be appreciated and embraced.

You might be wondering what is a flat pack cabin exactly? Form & Forest builds prefabricated panelized walls and components based on architectural plans in their indoor manufacturing facility and deliver them to your job site.  These components are shipped flat along with siding, doors, windows, and roofing materials.

The Cowboy shown here is 635 square feet and the price for the kit is $68,100 excluding shipping and taxes. To learn more and see more designs and download a brochure, visit the Form & Forest website.

Floorplan

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Stephanie Reiley of Coming Unmoored pointed this great find out to me on facebook the other day and I wanted to share with you this neat prototype that I personally hope will go into production one day.

The Taliesin Mod.FabTM is an example of simple, elegant, and sustainable living in the desert. The one-bedroom, 600-square-foot prototype residence relies on panelized construction to allow for speed and economy on site or in a factory.

It can be connected to utilities or be “unplugged,” relying on low-consumption fixtures, rainwater harvesting, greywater re-use, natural ventilation, solar orientation, and photovoltaics to reduce energy and water use. The structure is dimensioned and engineered to be transportable via roadway.

The Taliesin Mod.FabTM was designed and built by graduate and undergraduate students at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture with the faculty guidance of Michael P. Johnson and Jennifer Siegal, project manager Christian Butler, recent M.Arch graduate, and assistant project manager Nick Mancusi, current BAS student.

You can view the construction of this home at the PrairieMod blog and more pictures at the Taliesin Mod.FabTM site.

Photo Credits Bill Timmerman

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I promised an update on the Solargon Structure’s Yurts and Doug Kirk has been kind enough to give me some figures to share with you. I have also added some photos of the larger yurt they produce. The 30 foot yurt, so look it over and enjoy. See the previous post on the Solargon Structure’s Yurt here.

MSRP for the 20′ model is $ 22,500

Included:

All walls R28 and roof panels R42, micro-lam headers, wall to wall connecters, aircraft grade octagon operable skylight, compression ring w/header, screws for assembly and owner’s assembly manual. Walls cam-lock together in seconds and the typical erection time is 4 to 5 hours.

MSRP for the 30′ model is $ 39,900

Included:

All walls R42 and roof panels R42, micro-lam headers, wall to wall connectors, glue-lam super structure and rafters, operable skylight,compression frame w/header and assembly manual. Wall and roof panels cam-lock together and the typical erection time is 2 days.

Some will say that they sound expensive but you save time and money on assembly, very little waste or theft, and no expensive contractor needed. When your home is up you have the walls, roof, insulation, and rough electrical with boxes ready to go for about $55.00 per sq. ft. You then choose the interior and exterior finishing of your choice. An average home will cost about $125 to $150 per sq. ft. to finish so Solargons are very competitive.

Additional value is in the energy savings for the life of the building. You can upgrade your lifestyle with energy savings and lower your carbon footprint and live in a open and light living space.

Your kit can be shipped anywhere and can be put together by customers. We do supply tech support or can assist with your project.

Visit www.solargonsales.com for more pictures. You can also view a virtual interior of a 30′ model to get an idea what the interior would look like. See interior of 30′ Solargon.

30' Solargon Floorplan

20' Solargon Yurt

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David Kent one of the Tiny House Blog readers recently sent me to this link of SIP built yurts built in Colorado. The company is called Solargon Structures, at this point I have not communicated with the owners directly, but hope to hear from them soon as far as prices go and to how far away these can be shipped and built.

Solargons are octagonal buildings featuring passive solar design principles. The shape is inspired by design elements from Native American and Asian nomadic tribes, while the materials represent the latest in green building technologies.

Both the construction materials and the construction process are designed to minimize setup time, and maximize the building’s lifetime performance.

Solargon Kitchen

On site assembly requires mere hours for the 20’ model and less than two days for the 30’ model.

Solargon’s 20’ diameter buildings serve admirably in a variety of ways: recreational cabins, second homes, mother-in-law apartments, art studios, ski huts, military housing, emergency housing, satellite classrooms, etc.

See update with pricing Here!

Solargon Yurt Interior

The new 30’ diameter building makes an ideal starter homes, club houses, recreational centers, corporate retreats and sales buildings. Each 30’ model can be attached or linked to additional Solargons for even more floorplan flexibility.

Visit the Solargon Structures website to learn more.

Below you can see the actual construction of a twenty foot Solargon yurt that is used for a ski patrol warming hut in Colorado.

Delivered to Site

SIP Walls Installed

Roof Installed

Exterior Membrane

Completed Solargon Yurt

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Powerderhorn Ski Hut in Use

There has been a lot of discussion on the Small House Society Yahoo list lately about the Sing RV Rent to Own mini park model built in McCleary, Washington. I decided to get in touch with Sing RV and learn more about this product. I have been talking to Peter Sing and his Sales Director Jason Vaughn and have discovered a very affordable option for a tiny home.

The Sing RV is built using the Sing honeycomb product designed by Sing. The Sing honeycomb panels are made with patented Sing honeycomb core which is a low cost, high strength, lightweight panel. These panels can be made into any type of structure you can imagine.

Sing sells the mini park models assembled and as a panel kit. Assembled, the 8 x 14 foot mini park model is $7,000.00, on wheels it is $8,500.00. The kit is about a third of the cost. They also offer a Rent to Own option, but you need to discuss this with them to get the full details.

Sing also has another option of building with their special logs. I will share this option with you in another post.

Go to the Sing RV website to see these homes under construction and how easy it is to build a unique home with them.

Sing RV Interior Windows

Sing RV Interior View

Sing RV on the Road

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I’m quite a big fan of Mother Earth News and in most of their recent issues there are always articles on SIPs or Structural Insulated Panels.

I started doing some research on tiny houses using SIPs and found a great site and company who specializes in tiny or small buildings called Little Green Buildings based in Port Angeles, Washington.

They are a small company with great customer service. There buildings range in size from 32 square feet to 400 square feet and are quite reasonably priced.

Getaway

Why Use SIPs? Here are a few good reasons.

• Extremely energy efficient.
• Super insulated floors, walls and roof.
• Small heating and air conditioning equipment = much lower utility bills and no more cold feet.
• Because of the core system of rigid foam no mold, no bugs.
• And a great fire rating!
• Stronger, straighter, three times faster to build.
• No vapor barriers to worry about.
• Little or no waste.
• No need for bird blocks or ridge vents.
• Storm and earthquake resistant.
• Snow loads just about anywhere on earth.
• Super quiet. Need a place to shut out the noise of every day life?
• More space. Because the roof itself is insulated “no attic”, more room for loft or storage space.

Here are a few more samples of Little Green Buildings designs:

Chalet

Beachfront Study

River Shack